Mary Beth Smetzer
Community reporter
Call Mary Beth at 907-459-7546.
Community News and Faith page editor Mary Beth Smetzer grew up in Michigan, arriving in Alaska in 1969 after a stint in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan vaccinating women and children against smallpox.
Mary Beth worked for four years at the Royal Oak Tribune, a suburban Detroit daily, and joined the News-Miner editorial department in 1986. In the early 1970s she edited The River Times at the Fairbanks Native Association, and from 1980-86 she was communications coordinator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North.
Mary Beth is longtime quilter and one of the founding members (1979) of the Cabin Fever Quilters Guild. She loves reading and being a grandmother, and enjoys cooking, baking and fishing. She found Fairbanks to be a wonderful, supportive place to raise her three children, Megan, Nick and Gabriel, now pursuing careers in academia, police investigation and computer design, respectively.
Recent Stories
- North Korean refugee finds fresh start in Fairbanks
- Saturday, June 27, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — In her 18 years of life, Grace Jo has experienced loss, deprivation, incarceration and little schooling.
- Fairbanks congregation gathers at Eagle Summit for special service
- Saturday, June 20, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — A solstice celebration with a spiritual bent is in the works for Sunday night and Monday morning atop Eagle Summit.
- Fairbanks' Aurora Energy power plant is online again
- Friday, June 19, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — All systems are go at Aurora Energy once again after a June 4 coal fire shut down half of the downtown power plant’s output.
- University of Alaska Fairbanks landscape supervisor takes care of business all Day
- Monday, June 15, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — Learning, planning and innovating are all in a day’s work for Jennifer Day, landscape supervisor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
- Fairbanks waterways attract a slough of cleaners
- Sunday, June 14, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — I was a tad apprehensive as I gingerly settled into the bow seat of a green canoe gently floating on the edge of the Noyes Slough at Lions Club Park.
Having never taken a canoe trip before, much less paddled a canoe while picking up trash, the challenge was daunting. - Texan parent becomes priest in Fairbanks
- Saturday, June 13, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — Frederick Bayler’s long journey to the priesthood was completed Friday evening at Sacred Heart Cathedral in an ordination ceremony filled with ritual, music, song and the ever-present scent of incense.
- Young musicians fiddle their way to national competition in Idaho
- Wednesday, June 10, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — The four Young Athabascan Fiddlers are well-practiced and ready and maybe just a little bit nervous, but they hide it well.
- Fairbanks priest named in sex abuse lawsuit
- Wednesday, June 10, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — The pastor of St. Mark’s University Parish and Catholic Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus has been named in a civil suit alleging sexual abuse of a minor that took place in the western coastal village of Stebbins in the early 1990s
- Expedition arrives in Alaska as part of 69-country globe-trotting tour
- Saturday, June 6, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — Getting lost in Mongolia, contracting malaria in the Congo and navigating crater-size potholes in China were some of the more harrowing moments for members of The World By Road Expedition led by Steven Shoppman and Stephen Bouey.
- Aurora Energy working to correct fire damage
- Saturday, June 6, 2009
- FAIRBANKS — Aurora Energy crews are working overtime repairing equipment damaged in a coal fire in the First Avenue power plant Thursday afternoon.
Recent Photos
- Thursday, April 16, 2009
- Last-minute tax filers were met with early closing post offices in Fairbanks on Wednesday, such as the Airport post office at 5400 Mail Trail.
- Sunday, March 22, 2009
- Percy Lolnitz
- Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008
- Two University of Alaska students, Michael Caufield, left, and Laegan Bole, who both volunteered, knocking on doors and spending hours making telephone calls during Mark Begich's campaign, pose with the senator-elect, at a thank you party Begich held at Big Daddy's BBQ and Banquet Hall in Fairbanks on Wednesday evening, Dec. 3, 2008.
- Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008
- Alaska Sen.-elect Mark Begich listens to Jim Ruppert at a thank you party for Democratic supporters that Begich held Wednesday evening, Dec. 3, 2008, at Big Daddy's BBQ & Banquet Hall in Fairbanks. Ruppert said he and his wife, Terry Boren, were Begich supporters. Boren worked on the Begich phone bank during the campaign. "We're celebrating," Ruppert said.
